Writing new code is like shitting crap on the toilet. Doesn't make you (the programmer) a genius, only not constipated. Maintaining that code, or in manager jargon "the easy job of adding the final touches" is a task that any decent person who CAN choose between a janitorial job and freedom would choose what he's free to choose. The world is this giant pile of crap because decent people can't choose and crappy people are running the show. After almost 20 years of "easy", I almost forgot how EASY really is. Crapping my own stuff, oh, the productivity!
I decided 15 years ago corps don't benefit us. So I broke free and can watch the world burn while chanting "told u so". This is what happens when people let psychopaths ruin earth!
I'm fucking sick of cleaning the crap after imbeciles but there's no other choice in sight unless I win a lottery ticket, which I play heavily (in a figurative sense), as in to increase my chances from zero to doubling them compared to just passively buying a ticket. That is from 0.1% to 0.2%, extremely well! (NOT, but what other choice do I have?) My company's life and death now depends on "senior software developers" with 2 years of experience who already left the premises. I'm talking hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars in company worth. I could tell you more but then I would say too much. Guy I work with and previously employed in Western Europe in finance, they had about $25Million of capital, all junior guys who at the same time were learning the domain and plain programming. Didn't do Jack Squat, were all fired and now company is hiring another round of greenhorns. My guy with =~ 10 years of experience and me with =~ 20 are entirely unemployable in the front office of The Man, be it finance or whatever other crap. Only option is making it on our own and if / when we make it, make it big. Fuck Google, that is.
If you spent half as much time cleaning up your resume as you are complaining you could probably find a better job.
Writing new code from scratch is easy for a mid-level engineer/programmer. Modifying/Maintaining a shit-pile of code from a transient team of egotistical self-gratifying idiots is extremely difficult. My code that connects to IBAPI is the former. My day job is the latter.
After 30 years in engineering I've known many coders and engineers and none of them has ever liked somebody else's code!